One of the lowest forms of life in comedy is the joke thief. They are usually subpar writers who go to shows, steal other comic’s material and pass it off as their own. There is a common phenomenon known as parallel writing – guess what? More than one comedian has written jokes about relationships, drinking, family, etc. The thief though straight up loots the entire bit. It happened to me pretty early on, but the funny thing I realized is that other comedians don’t respect the scumbags, so they don’t get as much work. More importantly, I found out the guy that stole my joke couldn’t do it as well as me. The problem solved itself quickly.
All that background was for this. Recently, an 89 year old man was inspired by a couple Cincy comics Cam O’Connor and Mark Chalifoux, who did a cool thing by teaching a comedy class at a senior center. Chuck Esterly went to an open mic comedy night with his jokes and became an internet sensation…until some scumdick at Slate.com decided to put out an article blasting him as a joke thief. The only thing worse than a joke thief, it turns out, is a non-comedian internet writer attacking a guy old enough to have served in World War II.
Here’s the funny thing he doesn’t realize. “Street” jokes are common property. If you go onstage and do “a rabbi, a priest and a turtle walk into a bar” material, everyone with a brain knows it’s been done before. If you have an uncle, you’ve probably heard these jokes at every family function. No one bursts in the door and calls your Uncle Joe a hack and trashes him on the internet. Plus, it’s an unpaid open mic. This old guy wasn’t using this material to make $50,000 as an advance for a show.
The last point was one I thought of and another comic pointed out on a post of mine – the people this author cited as the originators of the jokes couldn’t have possibly written the jokes, they’ve been around forever. He spent all this time to shame an old guy, who brought joy and inspiration to dozens at a club, then thousands online, but he was a complete and total boob. He didn’t even understand the concept. Plus a lot of older comics did “street” jokes as their act. It was widely accepted and understood. Sorry we didn’t give Paddy McGuillicuddy credit for the “walking into a bar” joke he wrote in 1873. Plus Chuck is 89. I doubt he surfed the web looking for shit to steal for his unpaid five minute set.
In summation, I won’t even name the writer or link to the article. I did once and I regret giving the assbag any credit whatsoever. I do however, hope you learn to research a topic before you trash someone. That, and violent diarrhea in public. Mostly the latter.